Sit down at the bar in front of Bethann McLaren and order a dose of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, and she’ll smile at you, but you won’t get your drink.

It’s nothing personal; she just doesn’t stock the stuff. We’re a bourbon bar, the Union 613 bartender will tell you, and she’ll steer you to something you may not have tasted: A dram of Corner Creek, maybe, and after that some Basil Hayden’s or Eagle Rare.

“No Jack Daniel’s,” says Ivan Gedz, the master of the house. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it. In a James Dean, f----you-cowboy sort of way it’s fun to shoot that kind of stuff. But I prefer the higher-end stuff. It’s new to me, but I’m enjoying learning.”

He’s not the only one.

Union 613 opened a month ago on Somerset Street and has been packed since day one. And if the kitchen has earned converts via its fried chicken and catfish, Union’s bar has won a following that’s just as keen.

While you can find the odd interesting bottle of bourbon in the city’s other watering holes, Union is the first place in Ottawa to truly embrace the resurgence of the Kentucky whisky. On any given night you’ll find some 15 different bourbons behind the bar, a roster of mostly small-batch and premium brands that changes regularly and that’s making the restaurant a destination for the city’s cocktail veterans and initiates alike.

Gedz, 34, is one of three partners in Union. He, 27-year-old Chris Lord and 32-year-old Matt Fantin are all late of the Wellington Gastropub. While hashing out the concept for a place of their own, Gedz went on a fact-finding mission to Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighbourhood — “Mecca for hipsters,” he says — looking for ideas to help distinguish what would become Union 613 from the wave of Ottawa restaurants trading in locavore Canadiana.

In Brooklyn, Gedz was struck by the popularity of barbecue joints that offered not just traditional American barbecue, but Asian and other fusion takes on the food that were simple and accessible. The notion of creating a Canadian take on southern American food took root.

And so, bourbon: “It was another way to differentiate ourselves, because it was a market that was underexploited. And nobody was featuring it.” It’s southern, and, Gedz says, “It’s hot.”

American whisky still represents a drop in the ocean when it comes to Ontario liquor sales — just under two per cent of spirits sold in the province in 2011, according to the LCBO. But sales for the category are up 13 per cent over the previous year, which were up 14 per cent over 2010. While bourbon is only one kind of American whiskey — the best-selling, Jack Daniel’s, doesn’t classify itself as a bourbon — it’s been responsible for a big part of that jump. The LCBO sold $7.5 million worth of the stuff in 2011, a 44-per-cent increase in bourbon sales over the year previous.

That’s being driven in part by the re-emergence of the classic cocktail, part of a pop cultural moment fuelled by the retro alcoholism of TV shows like Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire. But there are other reasons why bourbon specifically has acquired some buzz.

“It’s a gateway liquor,” says Christine Sismondo, the Toronto-based author of America Walks Into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops. “Scotches have a lot of esoteric tastes, like smoke and peat and iodine. Bourbon is actually pretty sweet, so it’s easy to get into.”

What’s more, Sismondo says, “In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, people would show their cultural capital by drinking a single-malt scotch. Bourbon tends to be about half the price … You’re showing a different kind of cultural capital with this. It’s more about being in the know than having $150 to spend on a bottle of booze.”

Then there’s the chase. The scarcity of the small-batch bourbons only adds to their cachet. “What we’re seeing right now in bourbon is the distilleries can’t keep up with the demand,” says Marijke McLean, the LCBO’s category manager for brown spirits and duty free. And that’s not something they can immediately change. Because bourbons are aged, there’s a lot of forecasting involved — and a decade ago or more, when the whiskey you’re drinking today was put in a cask, nobody anticipated the current cocktail boom.

It’s the stuff of which cults are made. This spring the LCBO received its supply of the much-admired 20-year-old Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve: just 72 bottles to be distributed across the entire province. Of the Buffalo Trace Distillery’s award-winning George T. Stagg bourbon, the LCBO received just 18 bottles. When bourbon-lovers find a supply of an especially rare brand, they buy it up and hoard it.

While Union 613 is rumoured to have a few such secrets stashed in its basement, the broader selection behind the bar is ample enough, if tricky to keep replenished. “We have to try to get our hands on whatever the hell we can, and buy quantity of it, because it’s selling out that fast,” Gedz says.

But what they get, they put to good use.

Not so long ago, Gedz says, the martini cocktail was still ubiquitous in Ottawa. “Basically just hard alcohol, some sort of liqueur and a whole lot of juice to mask any flavour. So the idea is that you’re having booze, but you don’t taste it.

“But these cocktails that Bethann’s making now feature booze — they accent the booze, so you can taste the bourbon in the cocktail.”

So while it’s worth sampling any of Union’s bourbons neat, they’re hardly wasted mixed. The Union staff make their own juices and syrups, and have sought out an array of bitters: Ingredients worthy of the bourbons with which they’re mixed.

Take McLaren’s Old Fashioned: You’ll never find a maraschino cherry in her version of bourbon’s signature cocktail.

Instead, she soaks fresh cherries for weeks in a marinade of simple syrup, cinnamon, star anise, cloves, orange peel, vanilla bean pod — and more bourbon, of course. “The longer they sit, they better they taste,” she says.

”I always encourage (customers) to eat the cherries. Little things like that, I find, make a big difference.”

At the very least, they make it hard to go back to Jack.

The sippable five

While Union 613’s selection of bourbon varies, bartender Bethann McLaren highlights five bottles that are usually behind the bar and that are also available through LCBO retail stores. Check lcbo.com for distribution.

■ Basil Hayden’s Straight Bourbon (LCBO #326025, $51.70)

McLaren’s favourite small-batch bourbon, and the one she recommends to Union customers looking for the more widely-available Maker’s Mark (it’s the same manufacturer). Great for sipping, it’s sweet, but has a grainy flavour profile because it has a higher rye content than most bourbons.

■ Booker’s Kentucky Straight Bourbon (LCBO #325993, $69.95)

A very complex bourbon, McLaren tastes charcoal, smoke and vanilla in Booker’s. Though its complexity can be lost in the wrong cocktail, McLaren likes it in a mint julep, where it’s complemented by the shaved ice melting into it and the mint infusing the drink.

“There’s honey and caramel and cocoa and molasses, and you can taste the oak in it quite a bit,” says McLaren. “I think it’s delicious.” She rarely uses it in cocktails because it’s extremely hard to get. In fact, an Aug. 22 search of the LCBO’s inventory turned up just one bottle for sale in the entire province — at the Hazeldean and Main store in Stittsville. When it’s back in stock, jump on it.

One of the first liquids to attain cult status during bourbon’s comeback, it’s just been added to the LCBO’s general list, meaning it should be relatively more widely-available soon. McLaren finds it a little bit nuttier, and can definitely taste the oak. She recommends it for people who find other bourbons too caramel-flavoured, and recommends it as a good cocktail bourbon because of its midrange flavour.

■ Rock Hill Farms Single Barrel Bourbon (LCBO #272294, $89.95)

McLaren tastes apple cider in this 100-proof bourbon, along with burnt honey or maple syrup and a little bit of pepper. A very sweet, very smooth liquid, she likes drinking it neat.

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